People go blind when it comes to their own wrongdoing. It is always easy to see the mistake of others’ but almost impossible to see one’s own. It is not difficult for them to sacrifice someone else if they can maintain their own well-being in return. They slowly get used to the pangs of conscience, then they even forget about them. Eventually, they get so used to this situation that they never consider themselves guilty again, they blame everyone else for their problems and that is when real blindness begins.
Gigisha Abashidze’s film “Neighbors” (2018) is about just such people. About people who have learned to live next door but could not learn to notice each other. From the very beginning, the director destroys the image of the so-called old Tbilisi yard, which has been a symbol of friendship, tolerance, and warmth in Georgian cinema for years. Here, the yard no longer unites people. On the contrary, one space makes the hatred, envy and resentment accumulated among them even more obvious.
These people live in a time of stagnation. Their daily lives have neither purpose nor perspective. Some wait for money sent by their wives from emigration, some spend the whole day playing backgammon and others only think about when life will change so that they don’t have to do anything themselves. Work is no longer an option for them. They expect that one day money will come by itself. The most striking example of this is Zura. His house is about to collapse, the family lives in difficult conditions, but he is waiting for a fifth child just because he wants a boy instead of solving real problems. Moreover, he does not take responsibility for himself or for the future of his children.
The only different person in this environment is Gia, and that is the reason why they cannot stand him. He works harder than others, tries to live with dignity, and does not think only about himself: he lends money to his neighbors, offers them jobs, and drives Zauri’s wife to deliver cakes. He also offers Temur to work with him and have a better life, but working is much harder for Temur than blaming someone else for his failure.
Gia is neither that kind of person who has no interest in money. He also wants to sell his house, but for a fair price. He knows well how much work he has put into this house and doesn’t intend to accept the first offer. This is where the neighbors are wrong. They think that Gia is greedy, but in reality he is the only one who appreciates his work. There is a big difference between these two things. The saddest thing is that the neighbors can't see all this. For them, Gia is the only person who hinders the investor's plan. They forget how many times he helped them, lent them money, or extended a hand. Kindness fades from their memory, because hatred is much stronger than gratitude.
Gradually, Gia becomes a common enemy for everyone. He is blamed for the failed deal, their own hardships, and a future that has not yet arrived. And Zauri fuels this hatred even more. He convinces Tornike, his little son, that Gia is to blame for everything, as if their family is collapsing and his mother is suffering because of him. The most dangerous thing is precisely this - when a lie is repeated so many times, it eventually becomes the truth.
Everything changes in the film when an investor appears in the yard. It is from this moment that the true faces of the characters begin to emerge. The strangest thing is that none of them even realize who this man is. No one asks where he came from, whether he really has the money, how reliable his offer is. Just the promise of money is enough to blind everyone and forget everything.
Gia is the only one who looks at events with a clear head. He is not against the investor, but he does not want to sell his house for the price that others agree to without hesitation. This becomes the cause of the conflict. The neighbors think that Gia is preventing them from getting rich, but in fact they are blinded by their own greed. The main thing for them is money, not the truth.
It can be said that the investor is just an excuse. Aggression towards Gia existed much earlier. The neighbors were always annoyed by his life. They envied that he worked, had his own income. The appearance of the investor only caused to pour all the accumulated money on one person. In all this, Temur's behavior is disappointing. The friend who should know Gia best responds to the first refusal with betrayal.
The most difficult scene in the film is Gia's murder. It no longer matters who the murderer is. Gia was killed not by one person, but by the entire yard. Each of them contributed to this crime with their silence, hatred, indifference, and greed. They sentenced Gia long before blood was shed.
Even more terrible is the reaction after the murder. For the neighbors, Gia's death was not a tragedy, but the solution to the problem. For them, the only thing that matters is that Gia's wife signed the documents and they achieved their goal. Proof of this is Zauri, who at this moment says completely dishonestly: What did he think, if he wanted to get rich. They can't even introspect after this misfortune.
But it is just here that they encounter the most bitter irony. The investor turns out to be a swindler. The police arrest them, the signed documents lose their validity, and it turns out that everything that made people fight each other and sacrifice their friends was a lie from the beginning. They didn't even care who they were trusting with their future. In the end, they were left empty-handed and with Gia’s blood. A person who helped others throughout the film was killed for a dream that didn’t really exist.
One of the most important symbols of the film is the collapsed wall. Lasha and Levan fight over it throughout the film. In fact, this wall is not just bricks and concrete. It is a symbol of collapsed friendship, neighborhood and human relationships. The old Tbilisi yard still stands outside but people have long since parted ways. That is why it is important that the wall is being built not with bricks or blocks at the end of the film but being covered with plywood. This is a temporary solution. As temporary and fragile as their relationship. They have not been able to restore what has been collapsing for years. They have only covered the cracks on the outside, but everything inside stayed demolished as before. Their friendship and neighborhood are as fragile as the walls of the old Tbilisi yard.
The saddest thing is that Gia's death and the failure of the deal change nothing for them. None of the characters feel guilty. No one says they made a mistake, on the contrary, life returns to its old course. As if nothing had happened. Gia's death is neither a lesson nor a warning for them. It is just another story that they soon forget.
This is the hardest thing the film tries to say. The problem has never been in one person. Neither Gia's death changed them because a person who is afraid of facing his own guilt cannot change. They may lose everything, but until they admit their mistake, they will continue to spin in a circle.
In this sense, "Neighbors" draws a parallel with Rusudan Chkonia's film - "Venice" (2024). In both films, the house is no longer just a living space - it reveals the inner state of people and their true colors. In both cases, the space that should be a refuge for a person becomes a place of conflict, selfishness, and alienation.
In “Venice,” the characters sacrifice their own desires and egos. Personal comfort and goals become the main thing for them, which is why they gradually lose the ability to see each other. Like in “Neighbors,” people here do not notice that in protecting their own interests, they often destroy the very thing that should be most precious to them.
However, there is a significant difference between these two films. In “Venice,” the tragedy is the inner emptiness of people and broken relationships, while in “Neighbors” blindness goes to the extreme limit – here a friend is sacrificed for the sake of personal well-being and the case ends with murder. If in “Venice” selfishness leads the characters to loneliness, in “Neighbors”- it directly becomes a reason for violence.
The main message of both films converges on one point: a person loses his humanity most when he puts his own desires and interests above the pain of others. It is at this time that the house, which should be a place of unity for people, becomes a witness to their moral decline.
The main message of both films converges on one point: a person loses his humanity most when he puts his own desires and interests above the pain of others. It is at this time that the house, which should be a place of unity for people, becomes a witness to their moral decline. The end of the film leaves another important question. Children live in this yard as well. Every day they can watch how someone else’s success can become a reason for hatred, how gratitude can disappear in a day, and life can continue in a normal way after a murder. Children grow up in this environment and learn from what their elders show them. If the elders are blind, how will their children grow up?
Gigisha Abashidze does not tell us the story of just one yard. “Neighbors” is a mirror of a society that has replaced conscience with envy. They are neither blind nor immature - they saw the good, but deliberately trampled it, because they preferred to live in their own shadow. In the end, they were left where they found themselves after Gia’s murder: with demolishing walls and an emptiness that nothing can fill. They destroyed with their own hands the only person who could help them wake up. Now they are alone with the conscience that they will never look into the eyes again.
Barbare Kalaijishvili
